It seems almost ridiculous reading this now- you wouldn’t dare consider buying a new car without at least six airbags. But more than thirty five years after its publication, this report shows a genuine concern as to a then-unknown territory.

74 Comments

In fact, it may be not as ridiculous as it seems. Mandating such a costly supplementary safety device which had not yet been widely adopted in production cars even as an option looks like an obvious overdo. Just as the article informs (but unfortunately fails to explicitly summarize), an airbag only works correctly in conjunction with the fastened seatbelt, and is inefficient to useless in most other cases. Concentration on the improvement of seatbelt designs was perhaps the most cost-efficient solution for the time being. It could be that some companies were very interested in supplying millions of expensive airbags to the automakers as soon as possible – instead of gradually introducing the device and incrementally lowering the production costs, moving it further down market.

As I get it, most manufactures found a way to bypass the mandate by using “automatic” seatbelts as “passive safety restraints” in lieu of actual airbags anyway…

3. Lap and shoulder belt attached to door (GM, some Hondas): Go ahead, use them like a normal seatbelt, but I cringe at the thought of the retractor getting stuck and the door closing on the buckle. Ow, that hurts my ears! Weak side-impact protection.

Thankfully, we haven’t had to worry about these since the mid-90s (IIRC, manufacturers had to start phasing in airbags in a certain percentage of their fleet when the mandate began, and I can’t think of a car made after 1994 that lacked airbags). Note that I say CAR, because SUVs and trucks had a later airbag phase-in. (Once again, correct me if I’m wrong.)

Now that I think of it, could the passive restraint loophole have contributed to the SUV boom? (Find the Thunderbird seatbelts uncomfortable? We have the Explorer for you!)

One thing Chrysler did right was installing airbags in almost all of its cars when the airbag/passive-restraint became mandatory – even the bargain-basement Omnirizon and the archaic M-Body. Like everyone else, they took advantage of the truck loophole, though.

As I own a 1975 Buick with airbags and as I was seriously injured in an accident in a vehicle without airbags, I really enjoyed reading this! I’m wondering how biased these studies were to make conclusions like that. I think that the cost of airbags is what motivated such studies.

Not to belittle your experience Phil, but I had a head on collision years ago with damage about the same as that pic…just a tad less severe I think. No air bags. No seat belt. No injuries that I was aware of. My car was totaled. I was a teenager at the time.

I remember back in the 1970’s all the controversy surrounding airbags-at the time I was totally opposed to them. The DOT in the ’70s commissioned a couple of”experimental safety vehicles” which were huge, ugly, cumbersome looking things. In 1972 the DOT held a big event where the AFM ESV was to be sent down a track to hit a barrier at 50 mph which if I remember correctly was the equivalent of a 100 mph head on collision with another vehicle. Pat Behard from Car and Driver was present and wrote about the proceedings; at the appointed time the vehicle was sent down the track to its High Noon with the barrier-and the air bags failed to deploy. Bedard went on in his writings to totally denigrate the government’s ESV program calling it a total waste of money-among other things.
A couple of months later in “Airman” (the Air Force’s automotive publication) the DOT released a press release about the debacle, stating the failure of the airbags could be traced to a couple of misrouted wires and making it sound like it was no big deal. Except that it was. I’m sure the vehicle was thoroughly checked out by the guys in the white lab coats and if they could miss a couple of wires, what was going to happen on the assembly line with the UAW assembly workers (depending on their level of sobriety that day?) There was no way at the time I was going to trust my life to these devices
which might or might not work.
As a postscript, some time in 1971 while I was in the Air Force everybody in my squadron was summoned to the base theatre to watch a short film-produced by either the DOT or NSTSA-on the wonders of airbags-it was a total waste of half an hour.

I much prefer having airbags than not. I remember seeing some of the GM full-size models back in the 70’s having the rare airbag option with the big steering wheel. I always wondered as a kid what the big steering wheel was!

I haven’t read the article yet, but back when GM was first offering airbags as an option, seatbelt usage wasn’t mandated by law….like it is now, so most folks didn’t bother to buckle up. Instead of “twisting the arms of the states”, like they did when the speed limit was reduced to 55MPH (states that wouldn’t lower their speed limits got their Federal highway funds cut off), the Federal government, acknowledging most folks didn’t care to use seat belts….jumped on the airbag bandwagon. Thank you Chrysler and GM.

BTW, Federal regulations require car companies to design a car and truck’s interior to give minimal injuries to an UNBELTED driver or passenger. In other words, interiors are designed for the possibility that the bag DOES NOT deploy.

And it’s my opinion that today’s cars are getting to be almost as ugly as those “safety vehicles” that were built in the 70s. They have definitely gotten to be as grossly huge and overweight.

I figured it was for those who did not wear seat belts and were relying on the air bag to save them. I hear in Australia the airbag is more powerful than in the U.S because it was designed to be used in tandem with a safety belt.

From memory the US airbags were more powerful and larger when designed to replace a seat belt, and had a lower deployment speed threshold. I wonder when manufacturers stopped making two different airbag setups (U.S.A. vs R.O.W.)?

Airbags used in conjunction with seat belt pretensioners seem to be the ultimate in passenger protection, I do recall reading airbag firing systems had to be redesigned for Australia to prevent activation from road shocks, true/false? I dont know.ABS braking proved problematic for Australian vehicles due to share roads so its likely there could be differences.

Yes, they were originally designed to protect the unbelted MALE driver or passenger, which was larger and heavier than women and children. Henceforth, more powerful and more aggressive airbags for the first decade or two.

Keep in mind the seat belt usage wasn’t mandatory until the federal government threatened to withhold the fund from the states unless they enacted the state laws, requiring the people to buckle up. By the mid-1990s, all of states had done so. Same for the child seats.

Back to the air bags, the reports of death by ‘killer airbags’ in the minor yet survivable accidents started to pile up. Most of death were the drivers and passengers, especially smaller women and children, knocked out by brutal force.

I remembered it was 137 deaths before NHTSA finally ‘admitted’ the mea culpa and changed its regulations to eliminate the ‘killer airbags’ and to mandate less aggressive ‘smart airbags’.

This is shocking to me. I lived through it, but if you asked me to remember what side Road & Track would have come down on re airbags, I would have expected them to be pro rather than con. Talking about the cost of the technology, to my ears, makes them sound shortsighted and totally consumed with the cost to the consumer over saving a life.

The imagery in the article is crazy. Talk about incendiary, these people are being bashed by airbags that look like granite slabs. And what art director mandated a naked guy in the opening images?

“Most cars have bench seats” reminds us of a time when that was actually so. Whether the change came from mandates or personal control over seating position (the passenger sitting on a bench seat had none) the only thing I miss about bench seats is that you can’t cuddle with your sweetie in buckets… but there would be no solace in that freedom if she went flying through the windshield. But, that’s just me.

Centre passengers either got ejected if unbelted or had their face smashed in against the dashboard by the lap belt, another good reason bucket seats were introduced bench seats were killers, apart from being hideously uncomfortable and back wrenching, according to my chiropractor who incidently drove a 63 Impala so equipped.

Air bags were being touted as a primary safety device at that time. Ralph Nader and Joan Claybrook argued that since most people weren’t wearing safety belts, the government had to make air bags mandatory to save lives. Opponents correctly pointed out that an air bag could be dangerous to an unbelted occupant, particularly children and short, light adults.

Air bags didn’t really become feasible until people began wearing safety belts in greater numbers, which happened as most states passed mandatory safety belt laws in the 1980s. Child safety seat requirements, which were also passed by states in the 1980s, got small children out of the front seat, which also increased the feasibility of air bags.

I daily drive a car with a large bench seat. One of the first things people say when they ride in my car for the first time is “wow this is a comfortable car”. I can rest my left arm on the doorsill and my right arm on the top of the seat. My car is the most comfortable long distance vehicle I have ever owned. The one thing I would change is going to cloth rather than leather or vinyl upholstery.

Would I make a performance car with a bench seat? heck no but as far as cruising is concerned there is absolutely nothing better. My car is almost as comfortable as my couch.

This is cool. I never knew GM had airbags way back in the ’70s. I’ve always thought that Mercedes-Benz had the first in-production airbag, probably because Ive seen several 1980s models with them. I did know that GM pioneered ABS.

I’ve had a strange fascination with airbags when I was a kid. I remember when we traded our ’93 Ford Explorer for a brand-new ’98 Plymouth Grand Voyager, which was equipped with airbags. I thought that having airbags was really cool and wondered how they worked (you see, I was an aspiring engineer growing up, always wanting to take something apart or to see what made something tick). The silliest things can be very impressive to a six year old.

Interesting tidbit: the German car magazine, auto motor und sport, had a special profile, covering the airbag technology, in 2009. The staff searched and found one of the first S-Class cars in pristine condition with airbags. The owner was persuaded to trade his 1981 500SEL for a brand new 2009 S500 fully optioned to the hilt.

The 500SEL was kitted out with dummy and testing equipment for the offside collision test. The airbag functioned perfectly after laying dormant for many years. The owner’s reaction of seeing his beloved 500SEL crashing into the barrier was priceless!

Interesting to look back at Road & Track’s skeptical take on airbags. That was the prevailing attitude regarding airbags back then, and not just in the automotive press. I remember an uncle of mine saying, “what do I need a balloon in my steering wheel for?” For many it was just another example of the Government Telling Us What’s Good For Everyone. I would have been about 19 years old when the article came out, and I was definitely among the skeptical. I figured that I just didn’t need them. My parents had seat belts in all of their cars, and putting on my belt was a deeply-ingrained habit, right up there with putting the key in the ignition. They even had them installed in their 1960 Corvair (I suppose there’s an element of irony there). But now? When I’m driving on the freeway in my no-airbags 1992 Geo, surrounded by all these people tailgating each other and cutting each other off, I get a little nervous! Just another way to save the lives of stupid and/or careless people? Probably, but they’re still nice to have.

My routine, get in car turn ignition to glow put on seatbelt start engine, it gives plenty of time for the glowplugs to do their trick and its $150 cheaper than not wearing the belt plus the annoying light goes out./

Some of the time I fasten seat belts first, which eliminates the annoying reminder chimes, although a cold engine I start first usually. After starting off, the shoulder belts do a check at about 15 MPH by tightening up for a moment.

I turned 15 in May 1979 and remember reading this article and other like it back then. I also remember thinking that I never every wanted to have one of these facing me while I was driving, it was just too scary! Well, I was late to the airbag party and didn’t drive an airbag-equipped car until I met my partner in spring 2001 and drove his ’94 Escort which had a driver-side bag. Hard to get used to at first, and made me very nervous, but I got over it. However I still don’t want a vehicle that has 20 different high-explosive bag devices packed into every little interior hole and crevice possible, and will go out of my way to avoid buying such a vehicle. We have gone way overboard with all these safety devices.

Although he has been criticized as being somewhat unfair to William Haddon, I’ve always found Malcolm Gladwell’s 2001 article on the airbag vs seatbelt controversy to be fascinating:http://gladwell.com/wrong-turn/

I don’t have time for a full rebuttal right now, but John Tomerlin was a hack, and that Malcolm Gladwell article misses the mark — the driver killed in the story was side-impacted on his side of the vehicle, and it’s unlikely wearing a seat belt or not would have made much difference. Side airbags though, if available at the time, could have made a critical difference.

I disagree. Robert Day was killed because he wasn’t buckled in. If he had been, he would have travelled sideways in his seat, with his vehicle, maintaining more space between him and the impacting vehicle. As it was, his Jeep traveled one way, and he went the other, right into the door and suffered massive internal injuries as a result. Would having worn his seat belt saved his life? Maybe, maybe not, there’s no way to really know. But it would have increased his chances by a lot.

No, this is a common misunderstanding. Basic physics states that you initially move TOWARD the direction of the impact; that is, when side struck in the driver side door, the driver initially moves toward the door. This is the impact that kills or maims. The subsequent rebound in the opposite direction, toward the passenger door, is of relatively little consequence.

Seat belts do little in such a direct impact to the door — you need a robust side structure and an effective side airbag to protect you.

I think the point of the article is that the seat belt counters the natural tendency of the driver to move towards the door, maintaining the space between the occupant and the door. The benefit isn’t so much about what direction the body travels as avoiding impacts between the body and the car. Also slowing the deceleration of the body, which is what airbags and modern seat belts try to do.

CA Guy

Posted October 26, 2015 at 11:49 AM

Yes. And granted Mr. Day’s son was seated on the opposite side of the major impact, but despite the severity of the crash he sustained only bruises, no doubt because he was wearing a seat belt and was not thrown around the passenger compartment.

The major point of the article is that there should have been more focus on mandatory seat belt laws in the US earlier in the game. It is most likely that more lives could have been saved if that had happened. We’re in so much better a situation today with both seat belt laws and airbags. Now if only drivers were more attentive, something that cannot be taught, as Paul notes.

A few general observations: air bags have their limitations, particularly in multiple impact and roll over scenarios. Seat belts have their limitations too: zero benefit if not worn. Many people would refuse to wear belts, so a passive restraint system would offer more protection than a belt not worn.

Before enacting the passive restraint system, the government mandated a seat belt interlock for model year 74 which prevented the engine starting unless the belts were buckled. The interlock was so unpopular the reg was repealed before the 74 model year ended.

So the air bag was adopted as offering the best protection consistent with minimal effort or inconvenience of the passenger.

Who favored safety systems? The insurance industry, as safety systems reduce the insurer’s claims expense, with parties other than the insurer paying the compliance cost.

Who opposed safety systems? The auto industry that doesn’t want to expend any effort to change anything, other than styling.

Who is (was) R&T dependent on for a large part of it’s revenue? Auto industry advertisers. Who would R&T least want to offend in a controversy? The auto industry.

I don’t recall this article in R&T, however I do recall an article that appeared in Motor Trend around 74. The MT article was anti-unleaded gas, with shocking pictures of valve seat erosion. By the time the article was published, auto makers were hardening their valve seats so that sort of erosion would not be a problem. More interesting, I looked closely at the article, and it was printed in a slightly different typeface than the other articles in the magazine. My suspicion was the article was actually Ethyl Corp propaganda that MT had published direct from the Ethyl layout, without tagging it as an advertisement.

Argue all you want about the priorities of Consumer Reports’ tests. There is a reason that Consumer Reports buys the cars it tests at retail from dealers and does not sell advertising space. They neither get ringers, nor are they beholding to the producers of the products they test.

Oh yes the doom and gloom surrounding unleaded petrol was amusing it has been replayed in every market the latest in Aussie when we returned in 2000 I ran all my cars on unleaded with no ill effects, Ive done the same now back in NZ in fact I put a head with new valves and seats on the motor in my HIllman that motor has since been replaced so I’ll pull the head and check but it was only knocking from the bottom end when I pulled it out no missing due to tight valves, I bet its fine.

Very well stated, Steve. The buff books depend heavily on auto advertising, always have and always will.

It’s telling that when Mercedes-Benz decided to offer its “supplemental restraint systems” (SRS), or frontal airbags, as an adjunct to seat belt use, beginning with the 1984 model year in the U.S, that the buff rags did a complete 180 with respect to their stance on airbags.

Opposition to the mandate wasn’t limited to the auto industry. Malcolm Gladwell is correct – air bags work as a SUPPLEMENTAL safety system, not a primary one. Without safety belts, air bags can be dangerous to some people. Plenty of people were correctly pointing this out at the time.

I would not get into a car equipped with air bags without wearing a safety belt, but that is what air bag advocates were saying we should do in the 1970s and early 1980s. Of course, they were also saying that driving faster than 55 mph (and later 65 mph) on a limited access highway makes one death on wheels, so…

No argument about airbags working best as a supplement to seat belt use. The GM cars optionally equipped with frontal airbags in the mid 1970s had a full set of lap belts in the front seats but lacked the shoulder belts. Lee Iacocca made a big deal about this later, stating that frontal airbags were a very expensive substitute for shoulder belts.

(Of course, Lee also did a full 180 on airbags, installing them in the driver’s position on many Chrysler models instead of the unpopular “:passive” seat belts.)

It was Mercedes-Benz that first introduced the concept of having lap AND shoulder belts with airbags as a supplement, and of course, that’s what we have today, along with a very high rate of seat belt use.

But before the mid 80s, it was believed that mandatory seat belt use laws could not be enacted in the U.S. — witness the failure of the 1974 seat belt interlocks, and it was thought that frontal airbags alone were better than no restraints at all. Seat belt use in this country was pathetically low at the time.

geeber

Posted October 26, 2015 at 8:18 AM

We hardly ever wore safety belts in the 1970s and early 1980s.

I remember riding with my mother and little brother in our 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 Holiday sedan in the early 1970s.

When driving around town, he would crawl up on the package shelf behind the back seat, and my mother would tell him, “Keep your head down, otherwise, I can’t see behind me.”

Today we don’t even move the car until both of our daughters are buckled into their car seats. And my wife and I always drive with our safety belts buckeled.

It’s to the point where I feel awkward not wearing a safety belt when I move the car out of the driveway to park it on the street.

The bottom line is that critics of the air bag mandate were correct. They work when worn in conjunction with a safety belt. They are actually dangerous to unbelted small children and small adults.

Air bags weren’t really feasible until most states had passed mandatory safety belt laws and child restraint laws (which got children out of the front seat). I certainly would not advise that anyone ride in a car with air bags without buckling the safety belt – which was what air bag advocates were saying could be done.

I’m not sure how they are dangerous to a small passenger, the passenger air bag in my car deploys against the windscreen forming a pillow for the passenger to hit upon impact, they dont fire at the occupant.

Small drivers can be very close to the airbag in the steering wheel, it is less of an issue for passengers. I usually put the seat a couple of notches further back when driving an automatic vehicle to get a bit further away from a potential explosion.

Chris M.

Posted October 27, 2015 at 7:53 AM

The danger to smaller occupants is a real issue, even with a safety belt. My mother (5′ tall and <100 lbs) drives with her seat as far forward as it will go on the track, otherwise she can't see the end of the hood properly. I've always been concerned about what would happen to her in the event of an airbag deployment. Thankfully it's never been tested and she rarely drives anymore as my father has retired and they've downsized to only one car between them.

John H

Posted October 27, 2015 at 7:12 PM

I know what you mean, my grandmother is well below 5′ (she has shrunk a bit with age) and she does the same with a cushion behind her to reach the pedals.

Do you really think the initial negative reaction from the auto industry and its print media sycophants would have been any different if mandatory airbags would have been initially pitched (correctly) as a supplement to seat belts and designed to be used with them? I don’t think so.

The auto industry has almost always reflexively opposed safety and fuel economy mandates from the federal government. The excuses are many – it’s too costly, the customer doesn’t want it, it wont work .. etc. Why can’t they show some leadership instead of being dragged kicking and screaming by the Feds to design safer and more economical cars?

The irony is that after being forced to improve, the auto manufacturers have shown that they can get the job done. The skills and expertise have always been there, just not the commitment. Today’s cars are infinitely safer than those of 40 years ago and get double (and triple in some cases) the fuel economy. Yes, sometimes the federal government does get it right and acts in the best interests of the average guy.

You are correct CPJ. Cars a l lot better than they used to be but you also have to consider they are also WAY more expensive than they used to be. On the order of about 50% more (in today’s dollars) than their 1960s equivalents.

A 1968 Mustang with a 302 and AC was around 3k (about 21k in today’s dollars) A 2016 Mustang with a V8 is around 35k right now.

No they’re not; they’re cheaper than the 60s. A base 2016 Mustang will run circles around a ’68 302 Mustang, and has features nobody dreamed of back then. Objectively, it’s a much better car in a thousand ways. And a base 2016 Mustang, equipped much better, starts at $23,895.

If you want to compare a 2016 V8 Mustang, you’d have to compare it to a ’68 Shelby 500KR, which with A/C would have been north of $5k. That’s $34k in today’s money. And the 2016 V8 Mustang will also run circles around the ’68 KR, as well as being vastly better equipped, infinitely safer, more efficient, etc.

The same reality exists with every car, comparing from the 60s and today. You get a vastly better car for the same or less money today.

XR7Matt

Posted October 27, 2015 at 7:48 PM

Thousand ways except styling and curb weight… And it’s a really a bogus comparison, a 68 GT500 KR was better in a TEN thousand ways compared to anything made in 1920. That’s the march of technology for ya, and a march of diminishing returns it seems.

Also if the GT is the equivalent of the GT500 KR, what the is the ’16 GT350?

Paul I understand exactly what you are saying. From a real world performance stand point yes cars today are substantially better than they were back in the day but I am talking about performance (relative for the time)

A Shelby Mustang was around 5k in 1968
A Shelby Mustang today is around 55-60k

household median income in 1968 was around 10-11k (70k in today’s dollars) it is currently 53-55k

The fanciest Mustang cost half the typical household yearly income in 68 but the current car costs more than a years worth of income for a typical household.

Please do not get me wrong. I think cars made today are way WAY better put together than they were back in the day…..hell I’m reminded of this every few months when I have to wrench on my Electra.

A $55k 2016 Shelby would cost $985/month (60 months @2.9%) That’s not apples to apples, in terms of the loan length, but cars today last much longer, and hold value better (obviously, a 1968 Shelby is not typical, and its used value might have been higher than average).

As far as purchasing power goes, while it’s true that median household income has dropped, it’s hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison. Let’s just say that Shelbys weren’t/aren’t typically purchased by a single earner head of household with 2.3 kids; then or now.

Here’s the bottom line: the cost to own and operate a car in the US is much cheaper today than in 1968. Back then, to drive 15k miles per year averaged out to 11.4 cents per mile (77 cents adjusted). In 2015, the same annual mileage costs 58 cents per mile. That’s a whopping 25 cents per mile cheaper!

It is much cheaper to own and operate a vastly better typical car today than in 1968!

People forget that it was a long and often difficult road to get where we are today regarding the state of safety and emission levels in automobiles.

It wasn’t as though the federal government passed amendments to the Clean Air Act and we suddenly had cars as clean and peppy as our 2015 models.

For several years we had cars that offered less performance, were harder to start, and tougher to keep in tune than their 1960s counterparts. That is a big reason why the years roughly from 1973 through 1982 are now called the “Malaise Era.”

It was only with the advent of reliable, effective computerized control of engine functions – which really didn’t exist when the tougher Clean Air Act amendments were written; the industry had to essentially invent them, at great expense – that we were able to once again enjoy smooth-running, peppy engines. Until we got to that point, buyers experienced their share of grief along the way.

It was the same with air bags. Today’s “smart” air bags did not exist in the late 1970s. Whether the industry would have opposed their mandatory installation anyway does not change the fact that they can be downright dangerous to some people when safety belts are not worn. Most people did not use safety belts in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The better route was to first encourage safety belt use through mandatory safety belt laws (which the auto industry did support, as I knew the person who was spearheading the lobbying effort in Pennsylvania at the time).

Also remember that the late 1970s were an era of double-digit inflation. This affected automobile prices. It was during this era that we coined the term “sticker shock.” People trading their 1972 Maverick for a 1977 car discovered that compacts were now selling at the price of a well-optioned 1972 intermediate.

The complaints about increased prices now seem like crying “wolf,” but that is because we enjoy the fruits of intense competition from the Japanese transplant operations and Detroit’s often halting implementation of the Toyota Lean Production System. (Two trends that, incidentally, ended up eliminating a lot of American blue-collar jobs among the Big Three, for better or for worse. That represents a fair amount of cost savings right there.) Concerns that a mandate would fuel additional price increases weren’t just made up out of thin air.

I’m certainly glad that today’s cars are safer and cleaner than their 1960s counterparts. But let’s not kid ourselves about how hard it really was to get to this point. Or that concerns over cost and the effect on vehicle performance were not valid.

CPJ

Posted October 26, 2015 at 9:39 PM

Yes, it did take a while after the federal mandates for the technology to develop to give us desirable solutions, but you had to start someplace. My point is that it took the Feds prodding to get the ball rolling. Yes, we had to live through malaise engines, ignition interlocks, clumsy seat belts and ugly bumpers, but technology and ingenuity eventually did its magic to give us vehicles today that are remarkable in their efficiency and safety.

geeber

Posted October 27, 2015 at 5:57 AM

In 1979, this result was not necessarily pre-ordained. A lot of these regulations were passed with the expectation that the companies would find ways to implement them in a cost-effective and reliable manner. That’s a pretty big expectation.

Concerns about their feasibility therefore weren’t necessarily just blowing smoke or shilling for the industry.

The first time I ever drove a car with an airbag, I had an odd fear in the back of my head that it would “go off” for no reason. I also had an inate distrust of ABS. Amazing the things that go unnoticed today!

If the recent GM ignition switch recall and the various “complaints” I’ve read at the Edmund’s.com website and Car Complaints.com website are to be believed, your biggest fear concerning airbags ought to be “will they actually work/deploy when I need them?”.
As far as ABS goes, if I somehow had to make a choice between my next car having ABS OR airbags….I’d pick ABS.

The only way to make a car safer is to improve the driver. Too may people tailgate, cut in front of each other, and pull out in front of others. Air bags work in conjunction with seat belts. A coworker of mine was sitting in her company truck (Nissan) doing her paperwork with the engine running, in park and the airbag went off in her face. She had some facial injuries. Nissan would not warrantee the airbag as it was being used for commercial purposes. I have been in a couple of front end accidents and the air bags didn’t deploy (Ford) One less thing to repair.

It’s essentially impossible to “improve the driver”. Even extensive and advanced driver education does not result in better outcomes. It’s simply a matter of attention and judgement, not skills. But one can’t teach attention and judgement.

The comments on this post have been enlightening and thought provoking. One could come down on either side of the debate, and expect a correlation in personal habits to follow, but that is not always the case. I might have agreed that the airbag mandate was another example of government meddling, as was the safety belt law. I might also agree that such laws are the result of lobbying by the insurance industry. But I am also a safety hound, as far as personal actions are concerned; I want to enhance my chances of staying unhurt in an accident as much as possible. So when I read that insurance wants a law, I figure they are working from hard facts about injury and death payouts. Not too hard to glean what is meaningful to me from that. I belt up, and expect the airbag to back it up.

The only compromise I make is that I love and drive old cars as a hobby… oops.

I too remember fighting with my brother to stand on the driveshaft tunnel, crawling up into the package shelf and shoving the seat belts down the crack because it looked better. Mandatory seat belts started in Ontario in 1976 and I started driving in 1980 and I couldn’t imaging driving without putting on my seat belt–even if I’m driving to another spot in the same parking lot. Its amazing but watching the news you will still see folks( and I mean what we call “new Canadians”) who’s mini vans are overcrowed and half the passengers are killed in a roll over because they were not wearing seat belts. I’m all for seat belts and air bags–its other drivers that scare me

I have always been in favor of airbags and ABS on cars. I also always wear my seatbelt (In fact I just got rid of my 1999 Firebird because no matter what I did(i.e. seatbelt foam cover etc) I could not get comfortable wearing the belt(i.e. rubbing my collar bone) and since I will not drive a car without the belt, The Pontiac just sat in the garage.)

I can understand the reluctance in that article about airbags. In the 1970’s there was still a lot of anti-seatbelts folks around(witness the 1974 debacle involving cars that would not start until the occupants were buckled up.(rumor has it that more people were pissed off about that in 1974 then were pissed about watergate the year before) )

Some of those fears that the article stated in regards to airbags causing possible injury or death were valid fears. In the 1990’s, there were several deaths attributed to the airbags (including some folks that would have lived if not for the airbags) and the media had a field day with this and loads of negative press about the airbags. This despite the fact the deaths due to airbags numbered less then 300(at that time) and had saved thousands(at the same time period)

This lead to advances in sensor tech that allowed the car to sense the weight/size of the occupant and adjust the pressure of the bag deployment. The media outcry on the airbags and deaths by airbags has come back due to the Takata issue.

I have a 2001 Buick Lesabre that I bought as a rebuilder because the car was totalled. Why? Was it because of accident damage? No. The car had lightly rear-ended a truck with a hitch, which grazed the top of the metal bumper underneath the bumper cover. I replaced the grille and the headlights and straightened everything else out (a hot air gun does wonders on bumper covers).

The impact was right in front of the airbag sensor (bottom of radiator support), so it caused both front airbags to deploy (unnecessarily).

The cost to replace both airbags, the dashboard, the windshield, and to replace and reprogram the airbag module was close to $4K. The actually accident damage was about $2500. Combined, those two repair costs totalled the car.

Without the airbags, this car would have been repaired and returned to the customer. With airbags, it was deemed totalled and was off to the wrecking yard. My state had declared the car destroyed and acted as if the car didn’t exist, so I had a lot of paperwork to do in order to resurrect that car back to life in the state’s digital database. That’s a story for another time, but let me say I won’t do it again.

Frontal deployment of airbags in low-to-moderate speed collisions cause all kinds of injuries that wouldn’t have been incurred otherwise: cuts/abrasions/burns, eye damage/blindness, broken bones in the hands/wrists/arms, and permanent hearing damage. This information is buried – nobody is tracking injuries from frontal airbags (not deaths, injuries with lifetime effects) so it is very difficult to determine how big this issue is.

I’m all in favor of side-curtain airbags as those have shown a dramatic reduction in head injuries. Frontal airbags? If you are properly belted in, you’re good, especially in larger vehicles (like my Lesabre). And if it’s too severe of a head-on accident, you’re dead anyway, regardless of airbags or belts, as your aorta will burst open as happened to Lady Diana from the sudden deceleration.

“Lobbying congress in support of mandatory airbags, Allstate’s representatives showed Senators film clips of crash tests in which a dummy protected by airbags emerged unscathed while another, wearing safety belts was badly damaged. What wasn’t mentioned was the belts used for this demonstration were flawed and had torn apart, so that a functioning airbag was being compared to defective safety belts”.